DirectX 12's new rendering features are coming to DirectX 11.3 too At this year's Intel Developer Conference and Nvidia's Maxwell Editor's Day, Microsoft were busy banging the DirectX 12 drum. They were demonstrating its CPU efficiency boosts as well as talking up the new rendering features they're implementing to show off the latest GPU hardware around. Microsoft also announced the new rendering features are also going to be part of the DirectX 11.3 API, which is being shipped at the same time as DirectX 12. PC Gamer

(ICYMI) History of the Personal Computer: Leading up to Intel's 4004, the first commercial microprocessor The personal computing business as we know it owes itself to an environment of enthusiasts, entrepreneurs and happenstance. The invention of the microprocessor, DRAM, and EPROM integrated circuits would help bring computing to the mainstream. This is the first in a five-part series exploring the history of the microprocessor and personal computing, from the invention of the transistor to modern day chips powering our connected devices. TechSpot

What to expect with Windows 9 As widely anticipated, Microsoft has sent out invitations to the journalistic A-list to "hear about what's next for Windows and the Enterprise" on Sept. 30, in San Francisco. Tom Warren at The Verge says (and Paul Thurrott confirms on hisWinSupersite) that Windows honcho Terry Myerson and his superstar sidekick Joe Belfiore will lead what Warren calls "a discussion" -- which seems like a weird way to describe a product rollout that will ultimately affect a billion and a half Windows users. InfoWorld

Windows 9: Resolution support up to 8k, better DPI scaling Thanks to the copious amount of leaks we have seen over the past few days, we are learning all sorts of new details about the OS. And if you are willing to believe this leak, which you should, it looks like Windows 9 will support higher resolution displays better than Windows 8. For those of you who have used high DPI devices with Windows 8, you will know that the OS struggled with supporting these devices. Neowin

CD-loving Japan resists move to online music Around the world, the music business has shifted toward downloads and streaming. But in Japan, the compact disc is still king. On a drizzly Sunday afternoon recently, Tower Records' nine-level flagship store here was packed with customers like Kimiaki Koinuma. A 23-year-old engineer in a Dee Dee Ramone T-shirt, Mr. Koinuma said that, unlike most men his age around the world, he spends little time with digital services and prefers his music on disc. The NY Times

Tim Cook interview: The iPhone 6, the Apple Watch, and Remaking a Company's Culture Steve Jobs’s office remains Steve Jobs's office. After his death in 2011, Tim Cook, his friend and successor as Apple (AAPL) chief executive officer, decided to leave the sparsely decorated room on the fourth floor of 1 Infinite Loop untouched. It’s not a shrine or place of mourning, but just a space that Cook sensed no one could or should ever fill. "It felt right to leave it as it is," he says. "That's Steve's office." Businessweek

Nearly a year in, is anyone winning the current generation console war? It's now been nearly 10 months since we first sized up the launch day competition between the Xbox One and PS4(and even longer since we took a holistic look at the Wii U experience). Back then, we didn't really recommend upgrading to either system immediately. But given every head to head needs a winner, we gave a slight edge to the Xbox One for its superior game lineup and media features. Ars Technica

How to build apps in Swift Earlier this year, Apple executives unveiled Swift, which is meant to eventually replace Objective-C as the programming language of choice for Macs and iOS devices. While Objective-C remains popular,developers frequently complain about how difficult it is to use; Swift's features will supposedly eliminate at least some of those issues. Despite its ease of use, developers will still need to spend some time learning how the language works. Dice

The man who launched the Dreamcast reflects on its 15-year anniversary Millions of people will sign on to their video game console of choice today to playDestiny, the much anticipated online-multiplayer video game from the creators of the Halo franchise. But the rise of online gaming, the astronomical success specifically of multiplayer shooters, even the construction of Xbox Live, the home of the Halo games, are all indebted to the Sega Dreamcast. The Verge

Ditching Twitter I’ve been on Twitter since the beginning of 2008. In the six and a half years since I joined, I’ve used the service enthusiastically, exuberantly, without the professional/adult restraint that many of my peers have wisely elected to maintain. Before it got big, when I lived in a little apartment with red walls in Portland, Twitter was my water cooler, my connection to freelance colleagues and a few friends in the tech world. Incisive

The SSD Endurance Experiment: Only two remain after 1.5PB You won't believe how much data can be written to modern SSDs. No, seriously. Our ongoing SSD Endurance Experiment has demonstrated that some consumer-grade drives can withstand over a petabyte of writes before burning out. That's a hyperbole-worthy total for a class of products typically rated to survive only a few hundred terabytes at most. The Tech Report

TrueCrypt getting a new life When the developers of TrueCrypt delivered the bombshell that they were abandoning their popular open source encryption program, it left many organizations in a hugely difficult position. Should they continue to use it, or heed the developers' advice that it was no longer secure and switch to another encryption product? On the face of it, the decision should be an easy one... eSecurityPlanet

Samsung acknowledges the SSD 840 Evo read performance bug - fix is on the way During the last couple of weeks, numerous reports of Samsung SSD 840 and 840 EVO having low read performance have surfaced around the Internet. The most extensive one is probably a forum thread over at Overclock.net, which was started about month ago and currently has over 600 replies. Anandtech